Never Say Goodbye
by Sakura Negai-chan
Summary: A spin-off of 13 Ghosts...it is written more from the ghosts' point of view, and it shows a whole different side of them. PG for mild some bits of language and mild nudity (very little--not graphic) I do not own any part of 13 Ghosts
1. Default Chapter

Never Say Goodbye…

By Sakura Negai-chan

Chapter 1

"Oh, my God…" sighed the Jackal, stretching out as far as he could in his cube. "I am bored beyond all reason.

"I wonder what it would be like to crossbreed a sheep with a donkey," stated the Angry Princess glumly.

"Why, what did you have in mind, dearie?" replied the Juggernaut (or "JT") lethargically. He had just given up on prying his cube open. And so the three of them just sat there, their three ghost cubes side by side in the lonely basement. The Torn Prince looked at each of them from across the hall.

"You guys look pathetic," he said.

"Let's see, AP," the Jackal said to the Angry Princess, whom he called AP for short, "Should we pretend like we care, or should we just kind of ignore him as usual?

"It's best not to flatter him too much. We should ignore him." But if one were to think about it, what _is _there for twelve ghosts to do all day, locked in ghost cubes by containment spell with no one to scare the bajeezus out of?

The Withered Lover had finally gotten to the insane point of frustration. She began banging her hospital equipment against the glass of her cube, screaming gibberish; she was obviously trying to create some kind of counter spell.

"Hammer," whispered The First Born Son (or "Sonny" as they called him) to the ghost in the neighboring cube, "are all women _that _scary?"

You'd be surprised, kid. Just wait. Someday, I'll-" but the Hammer was interrupted by a young man wearing a gray business suit strolling down their hallway. The Torn Prince perked up.

"What are you staring at?" chuckled the young as he passed by the Prince's cube. _I'm looking at your face, _the Torn Prince thought, _and it's really not much of a view._

"Hey, nice boobs!" the man Said to AP with a laugh. She screamed at him and threatened him with her knife. "Gaah! You! What's your problem, bad representation?" the man joked as he walked out of sight.

"Get 'im, princess!" encouraged the Pilgrimess eagerly."

"How?"

"Oh." But then, suddenly, the sound of an old machine just coming to life was heard. There was also a loud jolt as the Black Zodiac grid locked into place…and the Angry Princess's door slid open.

"Booyah!" AP hollered in total glee of finally getting out.

"Aw c'mon, Princess!" griped the Jackal, or "Jack" as he'd come to be called. "You got to kill the last one!"

"Yeah, but he didn't count--I stabbed him once and he kicked the bucket!" The Angry Princess strutted away as many of her fellow spirits requested that she put some clothes on while she's at it (she is said to have wandered Hell in the nude).

***

AP followed the man's footsteps all the way down to the end of the corridor. At the door she stopped and just waited for him to turn around. The man was shuffling papers around and looking through many briefcases. When he seemed to have found on that he liked, he picked it up and started towards the door.

He halted when he viewed the Angry Princess. She menacingly raised her knife to his quivering face.

"I-was just kidding back there, I uh…"

The other ghosts all cackled when the heard the man's voice crack. They began hollering things out at her, suggesting different ways to kill him, each suggestion more disgusting than the one preceding it.

"Stab him!"

"Slit his wrists and leave him for the vultures!"

"Eat him!

But AP had her own idea. She inched him closer to the doorway, her knife still raised.

"Snap his spine!" 

She wasn't listening. She kept her eyes on the whirring machine, timing her kill just right.

"Cut him in-" The Jackal could not finish his sentence, but he had the right idea. For the two, sharp sliding glass doors had closed right on the man and cut him in two width-ways. The ghosts and the man were stunned.

"Half…" the Jackal completed. As the man moved his eyes to the side and his glasses and tie fell away from his body, he too slid to the floor, leaving just the back half of him against the doors where the back end of all his organs could be seen.

"Whoa…" the Great Child (GC) exclaimed, his dark, beady eyes in an expression of awe.

"Cool!" agreed the Torso. Then all of the ghosts exploded in cheers and applause. AP grinned and through her hands up in pride of her one-hit K.O. But they were interrupted by the grid locking in three more places; the Bound Woman's-

"Yes!" she yelled as she exited her cube. The Withered Lover was also released-

"Finally!" she sighed. And then, the Torso's, or "T's" unlocked.

"Score!" T hopped his cellophane-wrapped body of his cube. The three of them caught up with the Angry Princess and were ready for some fun.


	2. Chapter 4

Hey, everyone! Hope you've been enjoying the past few chapters. I just uploaded chapter 3, so that won't be up for a while. I know it's kind of corny, but I'm enjoying writing it! Another reminder, 13 Ghosts is not mine, nor do I won any part of it. Read, enjoy, and review please! ***Also, please note: I do not know if the "towel-skirt" thing really works, I've never tried it. I plan to try it sometime. For anyone who feels compelled to try it, please do, and tell me how it goes.

Also, a reply to a review: Kyia29811, thanks so much for your review! I'm so glad to hear that you're enjoying it, and I will update ASAP! Continue to review!

Chapter 4

"Okay!" exclaimed Kathy. She seemed excited to make the skirt, which would be from a towel. "First, pick up your towel." The Jackal did as he was told, then, placing it down in front of you the 'hotdog way,' cut slits with your scissors about six inches up into the towel, each about one inch apart." Kathy paused so that Jack could catch up with her.

Kathy looked down at the ghosts and his project, then to her own. Her's was neatly cut and perfectly spaced. The Jackal was lost in deep concentration, but his cuts were all zigzagged and the spacing between the cuts was all over the place. Kathy almost felt bad for him.

"_Who _did you say you were making that for?" she questioned him.

"My friend--you remember. The one who I'm going to give the sweater to?"

"Oh, right."

"I hope she likes it!" the Jackal grinned, looking from the half-made skirt to the young woman. She smiled back. "I bet she'll love it," she said, "are you ready to keep going?" The ghostly man nodded eagerly in reply. Kathy instructed him to fold both sides of the towel over, the right side overlapping the left by about and inch and to fasten it with a safety pin. The Jackal picked up his creation and compared it with Kathy's. 

"Mine looks like crap," he stated glumly.

"It looks fine," Kathy replied, and she pushed him out the bathroom door., "now go give that to your girl!" Kathy ran off down a hallway and cut a corner, leaving Jack stranded in a girl's bedroom, holding a skirt made out of towel.

***

The Angry Princess wandered around the hallways wondering where her best friends had stalked off to. She passed by a large room painted gold with a luxurious bed and expensive antiques and a pathetic looking ghost standing in the middle of it. Moving on to the next room--but then she stopped, pivoted, and peered into the room she had just passed up.

"Jack?"

"Uh, hi, Princess."

"What are you doing? We have to find JT!" AP tugged on Jack's frayed straightjacket and began leaving to seek out the Juggernaut.

"Wait-" commanded the Jackal, "I have something for you." He held out the dull colored Abercrombie & Fitch sweatshirt, rendering AP speechless. "Please like it," Jack added. AP just grabbed the shirt and put it on.

"Better already!" exclaimed Jack, not looking down. "Some girl gave it to me. She also taught me how to make this." He handed his friend the skirt, and she gleefully took it and pulled it on. For a ghost wearing a hand-me-down sweatshirt and a make-shift skirt, she looked pretty good. To the Jackal, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

AP was lost for words. He had done all of this for _her! _And he didn't even know that Abercrombie &Fitch was her favourite store when she was alive. She grabbed him by one of the buckles on the front of his straightjacket and hugged him. _Every now and then I manage to do something right, _he thought gladly.

***

Kalina made haste in pulling herself up through the hole in the ceiling, and, praying that the Hammer would not be able to follow them up, dragged Arthur up behind her, and as she did--

"AUUGH! IT'S-" Dennis began to scream. It's you! What the _hell?"_

"Who the hell?" Maggie interrupted.

"It's my rival Damon's assistant."

"Yeah, before he DIED because of CYRUS, your stupid BOSS!"

"Wait a minute," commanded Arthur warningly, "My Uncle Cyrus was your boss, Dennis?" Dennis didn't answer, but Arthur knew. The four adults just stood there staring, which quickly turned into glaring, which turned into Dennis and Kalina howling at each other and Arthur wildly trying to keep them from killing each other. The extremely aggressive disagreement was broken up only when Maggie screamed, "where's Kathy?!"

"Lost 'er," Kalina replied, picking up her things.

"How do you lose an entire family in a glass house?" Dennis teased. Arthur longed to fling him down a flight of stairs.

"There are spells all over the library," said Kalina, "it's the safest place in the house, so that's where we should head to." The others didn't need telling twice. Maggie and Arthur pushed the two rivals in front and up the basement steps.

"Grrhrr, this is not good, this is not good, this is BAD!!!" yowled Dennis, as he had been doing the whole time.

"My _God, _man!" hollered Kalina at Dennis, "would you just give it a rest already?!?!"

"What now?!"

"You're so…I don't know…depraved."

"Uh, hello! In case you haven't noticed, _I'M A LITTLE BIT OF A FREAK!!! _I come within ten feet of anything dead, and I go into seizures. I touch someone, and their whole life full of shit just FLASHES in front of my EYES! So, _yeah, _I'm depraved, and--AAUUGGH!!!" Dennis yelped in pain and flung himself upon the ground; that meant something else was in the room with them…something dead. Kalina and Maggie slapped on their ghost vision glasses as Arthur helped Dennis get up. What the women saw stopped them in their tracks. A young but rotten and gangling man in a straightjacket and yellow eyes stood directly in front of them.

***Hope you enjoyed this little bit of it, and I'll soon have up chapter five!" 


	3. Chapter 2

Hi, everyone! I hope you enjoyed the first piece of this fan-fic, and I forgot to ask everybody to review to Going4wardBasis@aol.com!!! Please, please, please review! I love hearing comments and/ or questions and/ or criticism and/ or suggestions for my writing! Also, just as another FYI, I do not own any part of 13 Ghosts…although I've seen it so many times, I should probably own the Torso's arm or something…..but I don't. Oh, well! Anyway, here's chapter 2 (and maybe chapter 3 if I can stay awake long enough…..I've gotta go get some caffeine)

Chapter 2

"What do you hear?" asked the Torso to the Bound Woman (whom the others all called "BW").

"A kid…he's nearby," BW replied as she tapped into the psychic part of her ghostly mind, "his name's…Bobby."

"Ooh! Little kid?" The Angry Princess was eager to scare someone witless. "Hold on--everybody, get into your "scare modes!" I'll go get Jack and JT!" AP bolted off to try to unlock the cubes of her two best friends.

"Bobby…" sang the Bound Woman, attempting to lure the little boy into her deadly grasp. "Don't you want to come down and play with me?"

"Maggie?" was the small-voiced reply at the top of the stairs. BW giggled. He thought she was his nanny named Maggie! What a dork! She continued: "Come one down and play!"

"No, don't come down here, Bobby. Go back upstairs!" commanded a second voice. BW whirled around to see the Withered Lover positioned directly behind her.

"Who invited _you?" _commanded BW irritably.

"Just leave him alone, would you…I mean-"

"What?" There was a long silence after that which was only broken by a shaky, "If you and Cathy don't cut it out, Maggie, I'm gonna tell Dad!"

"Jean," BW said softly, calling the Withered Lover by her true first name, "who is that?"

"It's my son."

"No lie?"

"No lie."

BW wanted to step around the corner to get a closer look. As she did, she wasn't remembering one very important thing: when Cyrus, the man who had captured them, built the house, he had left special glasses lying around. They were glasses that enabled even the least clairvoyant people in the world to see ghosts…and the little boy was wearing them. Seeing a young woman in a tattered prom gown with a bloody, broken neck and rolling eyes round the corner, Bobby did the first logical thing that came to mind: scream. 

"Ah, shi-"

_"Please, _BW, _not_ in front of _him!"_

"I didn't mean to scare 'im!"

"Yeah, yeah--oh great, there he goes!" The little boy was sprinting down the hallway dragging a scooter behind him and screeching bloody murder. He cut a corner fast, and--ran smack into the Torso. The Torso let out a slow, low groan of frustration as he searched blindly for his cellophane-wrapped head, and sent the poor kid running down another aisle. Jean and BW ran after him.

Jean sent BW down another hallway, knowing that BW would most likely get herself lost and would no longer be a threat to Bobby. Bobby had taken the glasses off and was now slumped against the wall, gasping for air.

"Bobby," Jean called gently, "put your glasses on." Bobby did as he was told. He quickly recognized the half-charred woman dragging hospital equipment as his mother. She smiled and gave him a hug.

"Mom, that thing wrapped up in all that plastic-like stuff; was I just scared senseless by a screaming leftover?" The Withered Lover wasn't quite sure how to answer that one.

"Uh, no, Honey. Friend from work." As Jean was saying this, the Bound Woman appeared behind Bobby from out of nowhere.

"Nice try, Jean. But you forgot one thing--there are no containment spells down the hallway you just sent me!" As BW cackled at Jean, she bent over and kissed Bobby on the head…and Bobby was gone.

"Where have you sent him!?" Jean demanded of BW.

"Never you mind. And don't you worry your pretty little motherly head. I won't hurt him…much."

Sorry, guys. I've just gotta get into bed, otherwise I think I'll just pass out right here. G'night!

*~*~*~*Sakura Negai-chan*~*~*~*


	4. Chapter 3

Hey, guys! Here's chapter 3. The beginning of this chapter is quite similar to the actual movie, but it gets different, such as I explain why the Hammer was so mad when Dennis put his face up against the glass, and I tell why the Jackal tried to take Kathy's clothes off. Enjoy, and keep on reviewing! Once again, I still own no part whatsoever of 13 Ghosts.

Chapter 3

…Elsewhere in the house…

"Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa! No! No, no, no, no, no! Where are you going? Did I say there was a petting zoo downstairs? **_NO! _**I said there are ghosts downstairs, Arthur!" Dennis Rafkin, a rather highly strung and easily worked up postcognet and touch-know yelled at single parent Arthur Kriticos, heir to a massive glass mansion built by his late Uncle Cyrus.

"What do you want me to do, Dennis? My son is missing in a house that just sealed itself up on its own!"

"I _told _you, the ghosts-"

"I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANYMORE ABOUT THE FREAKIN' GHOSTS!!! Now--listen to me; I will _pay _you whatever Cyrus may have owed you for anything, if you just help me find my son," Arthur pleaded. Dennis thought about this. He looked back at Arthur's young African-American housekeeper (Maggie) and his sixteen-year-old daughter Kathy, who both had hopeful looks on their faces. Dennis finally agreed to help them. Arthur thanked him, then tromped down the stairs followed by Kathy, Dennis, and Maggie.

"Wait a minute," said Maggie, " there are ghosts in _this _basement?"

"Of _course _in this basement!" yelled Dennis in exasperation. "If it were Old Man Sedgwick's basement down the street, I couldn't care less!" Upon finally reaching the bottom of the basement steps, Dennis instructed everyone with glasses to put them on. Besides himself, only Kathy had them, and she wouldn't put them on. Dennis rolled his eyes, and started down one of the hallways. Arthur followed, leading the two women.

"Bobby!"

"Bob-"

"-obby-" Arthur and the women were randomly shouting out the boy's name, and Dennis was getting fed up with it.

"Hey, Glass Family Robinson, you're wasting your breath; this is shatter and sound-proof glass we're surrounded by. There's no way he can hear you," Dennis explained to them. Arthur shut his mouth, looked around at the many surrounding corridors, and made a quick decision.

"Alright, this is just taking way too long. Dennis and Maggie, you go that way. Kathy, you come with me.

"Okay, Dad."

"Sure, Arthur.

"I should _not _be doing this,"

…Down the left corridor…

"Okay, Dennis. Let's go back to this whole ghost thing again."

"There are ghosts in this basement. They are all over the place."

"I don't see any ghosts, just some more of this wacky spell shit all over the place. Show me a ghosts, Den-"

"Well, I _would, _but I can't _see, _I don't _have_…the glasses!" Dennis commented in a sweetsy, sarcastic voice as he took the glasses from Maggie and put them on and looked all around. "Ah," he said as he came to a large glass cube with a strange symbol etched into it. Dennis put his face up to the glass, and WHAM! The Hammer banged on the glass as hard as he possibly could with his heavy black smith's hammer. Dennis screamed in horror as he quickly jumped away. _Hah, _thought the Hammer, looking at the empty bottle of Windex Window Cleaner in the corner of his cube, _that'll show HIM to mess with my walls after I've spent an hour cleaning them!!!_

"What?"

"These stupid ghosts! They wait for you to get your face right up against the glass, and then they go…" he gave Maggie the glasses. "Raaarrhh!!!" Maggie jumped, then proceeded to put the glasses on.

"Oh, my--oh--it's…it's a-"

"A ghost, yeah. They're everywhere. Twelve of 'em. But hey, most of 'em can't hurt us, most of 'em don't even wanna hurt us. But there are exceptions. Like this badass right here. Come on, we gotta scram." The two power-walked down another hallway until they arrived at a similar cube, which stood wide open.

"Ah, crap!" cursed Dennis, inspecting the symbol on the door. "That's the symbol of the Jackal. And if the Jackal's out I say screw the kid. We gotta get out of this basement!"

"Huh..?"

"The Jackal is the Charlie Manson of ghosts," Dennis informed her as he desperately searched for a way out.

…Down the right corridor…

"Dad," Kathy called apprehensively after her father, "what if Dennis was right? What if-"

"KATHERINE! _Think _about what you are saying!" There is NO such thing as ghosts!" Arthur huffed as he stomped down the glass corridor. Kathy stared at the strange pair of glasses she held in her hands. She took a long, deep breath, and put them on. It wasn't clear who saw who first, but what Kathy saw stunned her.

_Clothes! _thought the "Charlie Manson" of ghosts. _Oh, those would look great on the Angry Princess! She'll get some clothes if it's the last thing I do! _The Jackal began ripping at Kathy's shirt, trying to get it off. The girl began kicking and screaming wildly. _What is she **doing? **_thought Jack (the Jackal, of course). Arthur came racing back down the hall, only to see his daughter floating and fighting in midair! Quickly, he grabbed her legs and pulled her all the way down to the end of the corridor.

Not having realized that he'd already gotten the girl's olive green Abercrombie & Fitch sweatshirt, Jack chased them down the hall until out of nowhere, a short, red-haired woman clad in black leather leapt out from a corner and flung a small explosive at the ghost. As it exploded, a large glass wall with odd writing on it appeared in front of Jack. He obviously could not cross it. Every time he banged on the glass, Kathy freaked out until the woman (who introduced herself as Kalina) instructed Kathy to remove her glasses and hand them to Arthur. 

Arthur gawked in frightened awe at the Jackal's chilling spectacle as Kalina explained to Arthur that his uncle Cyrus had built this place and captured the ghosts to power it--it wasn't a house; it was a machine designed and built by the devil and powered by the dead. How Cyrus created it she didn't know, but, riffling through all her stuff, she found a large book called the Ar Caanum. She told him that the machine was called the Ocularis Infernum, which was Latin for the Eye of Hell. But while Kalina showed Arthur a design of the machine, Kathy's curiosity had gotten the better of her. She had put on the glasses again a little while after Arthur had viewed the Jackal, and was now preoccupied with a different conversation.

"Wait a minute," Kathy instructed the ghost, "you just practically raped me to death, and now you want my help?!" Then, Jack explained about AP, and her whole outfitless dilemma, and Kathy became more understanding.

"Alright--you can keep the sweatshirt, and…I can even help you make her a cute skirt!"

"Really?"

"Really, really!" The two grinned at each other, and the Jack snapped his bony fingers, and the two of them disappeared.

"Kathy, can you walk?" asked Arthur, turning around to where his daughter was. "Oh, great. Just great! My daughter's gone too now!" Immediately, Kalina and Arthur ran wild, seeking his daughter out, when they heard the grid lock in another place…and the door to the Hammer's cube slid slowly open, right next to them. 


	5. Chapter 5

Hey! I've been getting some very positive reviews so far! Thanks so much! Here's chapter 5, sorry it took so long. My relatives came for the holidays and it was all hectic. But that's over now, so I can update more often. Then I've got school, which is driving me insane, and it's just so…(sigh) overwhelming. But enough with the excuses and explanations. Just so you know, I altered the way the people died, just to fit the story better. Below is a reply to one of my reviewers:

Cillian, I'm really happy you liked it! You hope Bobby is okay, huh? We'll see about that…it's just a good thing the ghosts in this story aren't as smart as they were in the movie. But I think they're kind of sweet, even if they are stupid ghosts! Kinda like me, lol. Ciao!

(By the way--that little "censored" thing down there--that was my idea J )

Chapter 5

"How the--CENSORED--did you get up here?!" Kalina asked the Jackal.

"Who-oh…" Arthur took Dennis and set him down as far away from the ghost as possible.

"I got bored. And when people go around leaving the basement door open…" Jack explained, shaking his head. "I'm pretty bad at being bad. Oh well." Jack began pacing the floor, not paying any attention to the four stunned and terrified humans. "I shouldn't be helping them. This isn't good. I owe that girl a new sweater, don't I?" He was now mumbling to himself. Then he spoke up. "I've got a plan! If you guys rig this place so that my friends and I are not all trapped in it any more, I'll help you find your way out, as well as anything else you want!"

"I want to find my children!"

"Good! I'll help you! Was that nice girl one of them?"

"Are you serious?" inquired Maggie. "You've seen her!"

"And you promise not to hurt us?" begged Dennis. Jack put his right hand across his chest and put up three fingers on his left hand and swore, "scouts' honor. But be careful." He started out of the room, but no one followed.

"Why do you say 'be careful'?" said Arthur. "I thought you promised you wouldn't hurt us?!"

"Yeah. **_I _**promised." He stared at the horrified father and his companions. "Let me explain a little something to you. Besides me, the nastiest ghosts you'll find in this place are the Angry Princess and the Juggernaut. They're also the two that you're most likely to run into. Neither of them are easy to work with. Now, while I'd be off convincing the Juggernaut to not rip your body in half, the Angry Princess could be cutting you up into tiny pieces. Or, vice versa I guess." None of the four he was looking at were very amused. "Just stay with me, and you'll be fine.

…15 Minutes Later…

"Okay, everybody," the Jackal shouted out as he led the mortals into a room full of dead people, "stay calm, we are being _nice _to the mortals." All the other ghosts simply gawked at him, paying no attention to the four humans standing behind him.

"Oh, I get it, you're being funny, AH, HAH, HAH, HAH…" the Hammer laughed nervously and got the other ghosts started up.

"No, seriously--if we help them find the kids-"

"Kids?" asked the Pilgrimess. Then AP explained everything about the kids; BW had scared the heck out of some little kid named Bobby, and Jack had gotten AP a nice sweatshirt from a girl named Cathy, who even helped him make a skirt out of a towel for her. The rest of the ghosts didn't say anything for a few seconds.

"Are you _joking _me?" asked the First Born Son skeptically. Jack, ignoring Sonny's question, turned to look at AP, then his other best friend JT.

"What's in it for us?" the Dire Mother asked Arthur.

"We rig this place so that you guys are free to wander around instead of being locked up in your cubes. I think there also must be away to remove the power from these containment spells too," Kalina answered for Arthur and kicked at the spells on the wall. The ghosts, all except for Jack, AP, and JT went into a very hush-hush huddle and contemplated what to do. 

"This is absolutely nuts!" whispered the Torn Prince.

"Yeah! This whole freedom thing sounds great, but just where are we supposed to find these kids?" agreed the Great Child.

"I think I have a pretty good idea of where to start," commented Jean as she turned to face BW.

"What?" BW was pretending to not be paying attention. "What's going on now?" But outside the ghostly huddle, a new conversation was being held.

"Okay, you listen to me, Ryan Kuhn!" demanded JT harshly, calling the Jackal by his real name, "you've had pretty dumb ideas before, but this is just sad!"

"Yeah!" AP chimed in with a huge grin spread across her face from ear to ear. "This is even worse than your Operation Stooge and the Potato Salad Incident!"

"AP, that is _not _your incident to comment on-"

"But we would be free to roam around, JT-"

"Shut up, Princess!"

"You're just mad 'cause you're wrong-"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am-"

"Al**_RIGHT!!!" _**yelled the Withered Lover, quite annoyed. She turned to Arthur, Maggie, Dennis, and Kalina and announced that the rest of them had agreed to take the humans up on their offer. Arthur stared in disbelief.

"Jean--Jean! Is that really you?!" But Jean looked at Arthur, and her eyes had the Universal "Not Now, Hunny" expression gleaming in them. Arthur nodded his head and looked down at the ground.

"Okay then," he said, "to find my kids-"

"BW knows something!" shouted Sonny, hopping up and down excitedly.

"Shut up, Sonny," commanded the Pilgrimess, "first thing's first: order. BW, please tell us where the boy is."

"I ain't sayin' nothing."

"T," the Pilgrimess said to the Torso, "you were there. What did you see?" The Torso explained that the only reason he was there was because he was searching for his head, which contained his eyes…so obviously, he couldn't have seen much and had no clue what happened to the kids.

"Okay," sighed the Pilgrimess, "Kalina, go see what you can do to defectivize the barrier spells."

"Defectivize?"

"I like buzzwords." The Pilgrimess pushed Kalina down the hallway that led to the room that contained the spell control. "BW, you are of little and/ or no use to us." She shoved the Bound Woman into her cube and shut it.

"Thanks," BW complained. All too suddenly, they heard footsteps, echoing down the corridor.

"Kalina?" wondered the Torn Prince aloud, "back already?" But he was wrong. For around the corner stormed Arthur's insane uncle, Cyrus Kriticos, in a rage…he was also supposed to have been dead long before then. He pushed past Dennis and the other awestruck humans and ghosts and headed down the same hallway that Kalina had gone. A door slammed and some odd humming noises from the machine could be heard, as well as a struggle from inside the room. The door bashed open once again, and Kalina bolted out.

"GO! QUICK! GET OUTTA HERE, NOW!" The woman's eyes were wide with terror as Cyrus chased her down the hall. A faint cry of "Dad!" was next heard from another part of the house.

"Well, sounds like we know where the kids are!" said Arthur as he and Maggie ran towards the stairs. He looked back once, only to see Cyrus take a knife to both Dennis and Kalina and leave their bleeding corpses all over the place. The ghosts quickly began to fade out.

"Guys, don't go!" begged Maggie as Arthur pulled her away from Cyrus. "You've helped us along this far, please don't go!"

*~*~*Since I'm feeling nice, and I feel bad about making you wait so long, I'll give you a little extra!~*~*~

At the top of the stairs, Arthur and Maggie found themselves viewing a terrifying spectacle; Cathy and Bobby were trapped in the middle of the floor, encompassed by a massive dome of slashing blades! They kept pleading for Arthur's aid, but there was nothing he could do. One by one, the ghosts began to appear all around the children, with some missing:

The First Born Son

The Torso

BW should have gone here, but she was working on escaping her cube once again

The Withered Lover

The Torn Prince

The Angry Princess was also elsewhere, most likely practicing being useless

The Great Child

The Dire Mother

The Pilgrimess

The Hammer

Where was Jack **_now?_**

And the Juggernaut


	6. Chapter 6

Hey! Here's more of Chapter 6 of the fan fiction of the movie that I own no rights to (kind of a classy way to write a disclaimer, huh?)! I hope you're enjoying it, and again, sorry for the long delay!

Chapter 6

Just as Arthur was standing there, wondering why some of the ghosts were missing, Cyrus crept up behind him and grabbed Arthur's hair! What he said was a mixture pf many things Arthur could not understand, and other things he _could _understand, but far too inappropriate to be stated even in an X-rated movie. Maggie fled to the Pilgrimess who huddled near to her.

As even stranger noises were heard from the basement, the Bound Woman came racing up the stairs and yanked at Cyrus with all her might and flung him at the slashing blades. Arthur was so stunned by the gory scene that he did not notice that the blades were slowing down, nor did he notice the two other ghosts messing with the controls for the machine in the control room.

"Push the button! Good, now that one, NO--the blue one! God, Jack, you're so dumb! Here--take this." AP shoved a jar of pasta-and-tomato soup- Scooby-Doos into the Jackal's claws. He didn't know what to do with it, so a very angry Angry Princess explained.

"If we can pour it onto these controls, it will ruin the wires, thus rendering the machine useless." Jack cracked the can open on the side of the metal cage anchored onto his head. AP and Jack then picked the soup up with their hands and put it onto the control pad. As they did so, the knives slowed to a stop, and everything became a confusing whirl of deepest black.

***

When order was somewhat restored, it didn't last for very long. Everyone found themselves sprawled all over each other at the beginning of a hallway which ended with a huge, heavy steel door…which was wide open. Ghosts and humans alike scrambled up and ran, but with each step they took, the door began to close.

"Run, kids! Hunny, get out of here!" screamed the Withered Lover as she pushed her children and husband to the exit.

"Jack--go!" the Angry Princess hollered at her friend as he skidded out after the group of humans. The ghosts of Kalina, Dennis, and Cyrus followed close behind.

"Princess-" The Jackal stuck his rotting hand back in to grab his friend and take her with him.

"Where's JT?"

"I don't know, AP, just come on, he'll understand!" But the door shut completely, and the Jackal's hand vanished from sight. He had no other choice but to move on.

"Bye, Jack!" waved Kathy as the humans ran for the car. Kalina, Cyrus, and Dennis were headed in the opposite direction, cursing and screaming their heads off at each other.

The Jackal waved goodbye to the girl and yelled a quick "thanks for everything," who's father replied "we'll come visit!" through a broken window of his car as he slammed the door and took off. Jack nodded, and then turned back to face the old glass house. AP waved to him from a large window, signaling him to get a move on. Where was JT? Jack wanted to say goodbye to him. But all the same, he turned and headed into the woods behind the house, not knowing where to go or end up. He wasn't even sure if he was ready to be free yet.

The Angry Princess stared longingly as her best friend's ghostly figure faded slowly away into the night. She was unable to think, unable to even fathom what the Juggernaut would say when he found out. She couldn't even see straight any more. AP just wished it was all a dream. It was not.

THE END

*~*~*Don't worry, guys, there's more…I can't just leave AP hanging like that! What happens to Jack? How does the Juggernaut take it!? Find out--read the Afternote! 


	7. Epilogue kind of, chapter 1

So, I bet you're all wondering: well, where did Jack go? What is AP gonna do now? Well…now you can find out! By the way, there is a song in here that AP writes, but it is not mine. It's "My Immortal" by Evanescence. I thought it'd go nicely with AP's utter loneliness. 

Now, I'll reply to a lovely review from Ralhan:

Of course I'll finish! I'm so glad you're enjoying it! Thanx for reviewing, and I wanna hear how you like what I've done to finish off this fanfic!

A Rather Long Epilogue

Chapter 1

"What's up with her?" the Hammer inquired about the Angry Princess. "She hasn't gotten up from that spot in the corner all day…and her door is open!" The Torn Prince looked over at the now rotting corpse of the lawyer that still lay cut in half on the floor and said, "Bad representation."

"You're not funny," stated AP bluntly and looked to her left at her friend's empty containment cube. She was happy for the Jackal; he had finally been freed. But her heart was trying to eat her away. She missed him so much. And soon, her other best friend, the Juggernaut would return to his cube; how could she ever explain this to him?

Pushing these worries aside, AP started thinking about how the Jackal was getting on out there without her. He'd always been kind of one of the "lost boys" without her.

***

"So, write him a letter," suggested JT, who was taking the absence of Jack a lot better that AP.

"_How, _JT? I don't _know _where the heck he _is!" _AP pounded the ground with her fist and toyed with the string on the sweatshirt that Kathy had let her have. JT then explained that you can just write a letter to someone to get your feelings out, but you don't necessarily have to send it. Then, thinking that it was a swell idea, JT went off to write a letter to Jack himself.

"But writing a letter to someone you miss a lot and then knowing you'll never be able to send it because you don't know where he is just makes it even worse!" AP called after the Juggernaut.

"Want me to bring it on home for you?" jeered the Torn Prince. "YOU CAN'T SEND LETTERS TO A DEAD GUY!! AH, HAH, HAH, HAH, HAH!" AP chased the Torn Prince all the way down the hall and shut him in his cube. Then she just sat down and thought.

***

_I know, _AP thought, _I'll write him a song. Everybody likes songs, right? _Sp, AP searched around in the study for something to write with and got started (**this is the Evanescence song I was telling you about**):

__

I'm so tired of being here

Suppressed by all my childish fears

And if you have to leave

I wish that you would just leave

'Cause your presence still lingers here

And it won't leave me alone

These wounds won't seem to heal

This pain is just to real

There's just too much that time cannot erase

When you cried I'd 

Wipe away all of your tears

But then she stopped and thought again; could ghosts really cry? _Nah, _AP told herself, _probably not, but it sounds right. _So she continued:

__

When you'd scream I'd 

Fight away all of your tears

I've held your hand through all of these years

But you still have

All of me

AP looked at her document with satisfaction. She thought it sounded more like a funeral dirge, but they were all dead anyway, so it didn't seem to matter. Not knowing anything better to do with it, AP took her finished song and placed it neatly in the top desk drawer, hoping that that some day some how, Jack would be able to read it. As AP closed the drawer, she felt a strange twinge in her eyes. Getting up, she lifted her fingers to her eyes and felt wetness.

_Hm, _she concluded, sitting back down and putting her head down on the desk, _I guess ghosts can cry._


End file.
